


all cats are gray

by forpeaches (bluecarrot)



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: (mention) - Freeform, Angst, Canon Compliant, Disfigurement, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Lust, Lust at First Sight, Mutilation, Sibling Incest, Unrequited Lust, not graphic but still, reasonably speaking, you cant prove it DIDNT happen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-26
Updated: 2019-06-28
Packaged: 2020-05-20 04:41:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19369900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluecarrot/pseuds/forpeaches
Summary: She was dirty and stubborn and ugly and she’d had him on a lead like a dog for a week, and he hated her.His body wasn’t listening to that.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written 23? June to 26 June, 2019.

Jaime Lannister looked at the woman sleeping nearby and very seriously considered beating in her head with a rock.

She was curled up on her side, armor loosed but not removed. One sword was beneath her — that was damned uncomfortable, he’d done it himself — and the other lay strapped at her hip, sticking up like the quills on a porcupine.

He had no chance of getting a sword. Possibly he couldn’t win against her even if he had one, not shackled as he was.

But a rock ... A man could move slow, he could creep so careful that his chains didn’t clink, and the girl would sleep through whatever tiny noise he made, crawling over the leaves. She was tired out — anyone could see that. Keeping a Lannister prisoner was hard work.

If he could only get off the rope.

And find a heavy rock.

He’d need to kill her too, but that would be the easiest of the three tasks, and anyway didn’t bear thinking of yet, so he focused on the first to hand.

She had tied him tight around a tree, hands apart and face against the bark, and he’d complained the entire time. “This is — you’re very — I can’t even turn my head!”

“I don’t see why you would need to.” She kicked dirt over the fire and stomped out the ashes, then spread them. Tidy.

“It’ll be cold tonight,” he said.

“If you freeze to death, I’ll pray for your soul.” She stretched out her muscles and settled down.

An ant crawled over his nose. He watched it, resigned. “What if someone comes?”

“I’ll kill them.” Sleepy. Self-assured.

“What if you don’t wake in time? What if they kill me?”

She must not have been over-concerned: her breathing slowed, evened out.

The ant, or one of its fellows, bit him.

Jaime shut his eyes and decided he really didn’t like this Brienne of Tarth.

He looked — she was asleep — so he did the only thing left to him: set his mouth to the rope and began to chew.

*

She woke with the sound of a jaybird’s whistle, when sunrise was only a pale hint in the sky, and stared at him. “What are you about, Kingslayer?”

Jaime smiled at her, with a mouth of tarry hemp. He had three strands left, and each strand took about an hour to chew through, and every chew tasted like dessicated shit. “I need to piss, my lady.”

“Then piss,” said the Maid. “I’m not stopping you.”

“It wouldn’t be gentlemanly, while a lady watches.”

She sat upright, folding her legs beneath her, and winced.

Jaime watched, in real sympathy. “That would be the ache from sleeping on your sword, my lady.”

“I’m not your lady. Stand up.”

“I’m—”

She stepped closer. “You’ve killed a king, you commited the worst sort of sin with your sister, and apparently you aren’t able to be left alone for six hours together without trying to escape. What was your plan?”

He didn’t answer.

“To steal a sword? To threaten me? You thought you’d manage to do that while I sleep? ... No answer to that, Kingslayer?”

She cut the rope where he’d chewed it, just a quick slip of her knife through it, and held it to his neck. “Behave yourself.”

He smiled up at her. “You need me alive to keep your oath.”

“And how much of you can I cut away and still keep you alive, Jaime Lannister? You think of that, and you keep a civil tongue in your head while you speak to me. Now walk.”

*

Three hours later and he really did have to piss — and he was hungry besides. A belly of tar and hemp did not agree with his digestion, and he told her so.

“Do your business and get on with it.”

He didn’t merit a _Kingslayer_ that time, he noticed.

It was not quite a declaration of love, but he’d take it.

*

They killed three men and settled down to supper — rabbit. The big lunk threw her knife and took it out.

Jaime was impressed — she’d barely sighted it — and said so. “You should see what _I_ can do with a knife. Oh, we could have a competition! Whomever wins gets to march the other in chains down to —“

“I said _no_.”

“You haven’t, in fact, and frankly I don’t think this is a fair and _honorable_ business at all. It’s a bit of frying pan into the fire, isn’t it? Have you ever met my father?”

“No.”

“He’s a cranky old bastard. Like me, but taller and greyer and more dour. You’ll love him.”

“I doubt that.”

“I was being facetious. You’ll hate him. Of course you’ll hate him. Everyone hates him, and in return he cares for very few people. He certainly doesn’t love me. I heard that he cared for my mother, but she died when I was only a child, bringing my brother into the world. He hates Tyrion for it. Says it was no trade at all.” Was that a trace of interest on her face? He went on. “I rather like Tyrion, myself, and I have no memory of my mother that would make me regret her passing.”

“She was your mother,” said the beast. “You must honor her memory.”

“Oh, a memory is easy to honor. Memory asks so little. It never gets you tangled in these incovenient questions  
of _duty_ and _obedience_.” He cleared his throat. “Mind you, Tyrion never asks me to be dutiful and obey, either. Must be why I like him. You skin that rabbit very neatly.”

“Remember that,” said Brienne of Tarth, “and hold your tongue.”

For a wonder, he did.

*

They were on a tricky piece of land, banking the river. It was all rock and hill — no place to go but up or down. His captor had called for a brief rest, she had to tend to something, and told him if he tried to flee he’d regret it.

He believed her. A misstep could bring a shower of rock and himself below it, down to the road below.

The road where a group of men with banners was passing.

Not Lannister men. Not Stark banners.

If they looked up — if they saw her glinting there like a big dumb signpost of rebellion —

He reached her in two steps and pushed her down flat on the hill, with a hand on her mouth. “Shut up,” when she tried to kick him. “Be quiet. Listen.”

She did. And her eyes met his.

 _Frey?_ she mouthed.

He nodded. Probably. Or worse.

They lay without moving, still as twigs and leaves and branches, until the last glint of black banner disappeared around the bend.

And then, since she couldn’t see a damned thing and had only his statement to go on for when they were safe, he lay there a moment more. _This is Brienne of Tarth. Not Cersei. Not some tavern wench._

She was dirty and stubborn and ugly and she’d had him on a lead like a dog for a week, and he hated her.

His body wasn’t listening to that.

She shifted under him and that didn’t help. “I don’t hear them,” she whispered, barely audible. “Are they gone?”

“Yes.”

“Then let me up.”

He looked at her and had the disconcerting feeling she knew exactly what he’d been thinking. Ridiculous.

He clambored off — no easy task, between the tightness in his pants and the narrowness of the ledge. If she had pushed him off her he would have gone over.

So he helped her up to her feet.

*

He dreamt of her beneath him again, not still and silent this time but writhing and biting and moaning in pleasure, digging her nails into the muscle of his ass as he —

“Kingslayer.”

He opened one eye.

“You were having a nightmare. Making awful sounds.”

He shut his eye again. “My apologies.”

If only she would sleep. Or let him return to the dream that was all fragment and shadow now, anyway. How could a man properly rub off while that sour face was looking at him?

*

If he _asked_ to kiss her, he argued with himself, she would only deny him anyway. And he didn’t want anyone but Cersei.

So it was only for stress relief that he worked a hand free and used it on himself.

No chance in untying the knots, she’d bound him well as a sailor, and the knots were on the other side of the tree anyway. The only _reasonable_ thing he could do with a single free hand was to slip it between his legs and —

Dear gods, gods old and new, yes. He’d drop coin in every beggar’s pot from here to — to Tarth — if she just kept away until he was finished.

She’d woken in a foul mood — foul even for her — and told him to keep an eye out for water.

“It’s the Riverlands, we’re bound to —“

“Then tell me when we do!”

Then she tied him up and went off, presumably to wash off the blood that had soaked through the seat of her trousers, and to do ... whatever women did in these situations.

 _Gods_. She might be touching herself now, up those long thighs, was it true no one had been there? Jaime parted her legs with a press of his knee and they fell open so easily, she shifted her hips to give him space and he pushed into her and he said —

He moaned aloud.

All cats were grey in the dark but he liked the light of a fall afternoon, he liked to see her face contorting as he kissed down her belly and licked into the wetness below. _Jaime_.

Not _Kingslayer_. Not _lord_.

Her hand clenched in his hair and her hips lifted up and he pushed her back down, he was kissing her and she kissed him back, hungry for it, and he rubbed her breast with one hand while she guided him and took him inside, bearing down already, saying his name loud, unashamed. _I want you._

It didn’t take long. By the time she returned he was calm and rested and tucked away neatly, and he smiled at her annoyance.

She stared. “I _tied_ you.”

“Not very well,” he said.

“I’ll have to do better next time.”

“Oh,” he said, sincere, “I really wish you wouldn’t.”

*

She kept him tied while she brought him off with her mouth, him talking all the while. _I never expected,_ he said, and _Brienne please,_ while she took him in and took him apart with the sort of indifferent experience he expected from whores, not an aging maid.

And he woke to find her asleep in her armor, just out of the reach of his hands, his mouth.

*

Then the Mummers found them and it was the best he could do to keep them off her.

Doubtless they would not find an argument of _that woman is mine, and I haven’t even had her yet_ to be very convincing, so he made up some shit about sapphires that wouldn’t have convinced a child but appealed to a man with more greed than sense.

So she was safe.

They cut his hand off anyway.

 

*

  
He wanted to die. Should have died. Who would miss him? Not Brienne of bloody Tarth, for certain. They tied them together with his rotting hand between them and he remembered her face when he looked up, he couldn’t look at his wrist, he couldn’t, and he couldn’t look at them either because they were laughing and not being able to kill them was unacceptable, so he looked at her and he thought if she gave him the slightest bit of sympathy he would kill her too —

but her face was blank. Expressionless. Swollen and bruised and purpling from their fists, and she was staring at his hand in the mud.

He couldn’t look at that. He caught her eye and she looked —

Pitiless. None for them and none for him either.

 _I want to die,_ he told her, silent across the mud. _Brienne, I want to die._

 _Don’t you dare give them that satisfaction,_ she said.

*

He had expected them to rape her anyway, and from her eyes she thought the same: but it seemed they’d gotten enough pleasure from his pain.

At least some good had come of it, he supposed.

All things considered he’d rather have his hand.

He wondered what choice she would have made.

*

He expected never to sleep again but he was out when they banked the fire, sleeping dreamless and deep.

*

In the morning he saw three things: she was still a maid; that her mouth was swollen and split just where he had liked to bite at it, in imagination, which seemed vastly unfair somehow; and three, that she knew something he’d missed.

 _Where are we going?_ he asked her, silent.

She jerked her eyes up to the trees, where the sun was rising on their left.

 _South,_ she said. _To Riverrun._

And then everything went black and red.

*

He woke and found them face to face on a horse, his hand between them on a string. “Jaime?” she whispered, and shouted “He’s about to fall — someone, help him—”

He wanted to tell her she was far too loud, he was right there, she didn’t need to yell — but then there was darkness and pain and her voice swearing at him, and he woke to swallow down broth and bring it back up, and he woke to someone kicking him, and he woke he woke he woke

and he really wished he wouldn’t.

*

“Jaime?”

He opened his eyes and it was dark — real dark, not blindness or fever.

His throat was swollen and dry. He coughed.

“You’re alive,” she whispered.

It was still true. He sighed.

“Don’t leave me,” she said.

He didn’t think she would _want_ him around. He’d only gotten her captured and beaten and abused and —

“Jaime?”

Gods, wouldn’t she be quiet? “What?”

“Don’t even think of that. You need to live.”

“They took my hand. My _sword_ hand.” He trained on both but never with much interest, his right was the best for fighting and writing and fucking and for jerking off betweentimes and  _what would Cersei say,_ he wanted to cry but it would leave tracks on his face and he couldn’t wipe it away. Not with one hand.

How could he live with only one hand? And not even the right one.

“You sound like a bloody coward,” she said: and he stared at her.

“A coward!”

“Is this your first taste of reality? Jaime Lannister, blessed by the gods and worshiped by men. I’ve heard your armor isn’t even scratched. You’re that good.” Pause. “Not anymore.”

He tried to rise up, to strike her, and only succeeded in wallowing like a pig. “How _dare_ you—”

“One thing goes wrong and you weep and wail—”

“I don’t see _you_ missing any parts!” he hissed. Glared. “Including your precious maidenhead.”

“Oh please,” she whispered back. “I didn’t offer up your hand in exchange for my virginity, and you didn’t either. All you gave them is a promise of sapphires that don’t even exist—”

“Lower your voice.”

“I don’t give a damn about preserving what’s between my legs, Jaime Lannister, and if I had to, I’d take you here to prove it.”

“Would you?” he said: and they both heard the tone in his voice, that time.

She stared at him.

The next time she spoke it was gentler. “I appreciate your help, and I’m sorry for what happened, and ...”

And what?

“And I know you’re no coward.”

He shut his eyes again didn’t answer. She didn’t know him very well at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> worker ants are commonly referred to as “female” because they are not male, but it’s more accurate to say they are ungender.
> 
> *
> 
> hemp makes the best rope (three times as strong as the rope that you buy domestically!), and presumably rope is still made by hand in the ASOIAF universe, and handspinning/tarcoating rope is such a tedious business that even I haven’t tried to do it


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written 26 June 2019.

Jaime Lannister was stupid, annoying, loudmouthed, and  _intentionally_ frustrating. He was naked below the waist, smeared in mud, stinking of fever and pain and his own shit. 

And he was still the most beautiful person she had ever seen in her life.

She brought water up in her hands and washed him as quickly as she could, not for his modesty’s sake alone; she knew their time in the river was limited. _Oathbreaker_ he might be, but he had done his best to help her more than once, and she would do her level best to take him to safety.

But she was so afraid.

“Jaime?”

He mumbled something.

“Don’t die,” she said. “You have to live.”

Gods, his skin was so hot, how could he be so warm and not burn? She cupped water — ice-cold, from the river, it came down from the snow on the mountains that never melted, these northers were all mad — and let it run over his head, running over his cheeks like tears. Jaime.

He shivered.

“I know it’s cold. I’m sorry.”

“Burning,” he said. “Burn them all.”

And he fell over into her arms.

*

A noise woke her and she jolted into terrified awareness, thinking she would kill them, she would _kill them —_

No one was touching her. The fires were out, banked and glowing. The men still slept and snored, she was still tied, Jaime Lannister still slept with the sweat of fever on him, so what had —

He moaned again. Not in pain.

Brienne bit down on a laugh.

Men were so strange. Here he was half-dead and still dreaming of ... yes, he was. She could see his ... male part, pressing a tent into his trousers.

 _Yes,_ he said, and _please._

A polite man. How unusual. If only he were so lucid (or half as polite) when he was awake.

She found she rather missed talking to him — or rather, listening to his incessant chatter.

 _Please,_ he said again, and _Cersei, don’t._

Were the rumors true? He had said as much — _I’ve never been with anyone but Cersei_ — but men lied as often as they spoke, and he was a kingslayer too, he couldn’t be trusted —

 _Please,_ he said, and a pause, and another groan, and then: _Brienne._

She’d misheard him. She knew it. He was dreaming, he was fevered, he was gasping and whimpering and arching — she shouldn’t be watching this — and he was softening too, and she still looked.

He’d said her name.

She flushed hot with something that was not wholly embarrassment and resolutely shut her eyes to sleep.

*

The attendants begged her pardon, they had no scented oil to hand, only plain soap and the hard, dried plants these people used to wash themselves.

It didn’t matter. She didn’t need oil and powder and soft cloths; nothing had ever been as good as that hot water. She ducked underneath and stayed there until she had to breathe — it took a while, she had always been fond of the water, she’d swam before she could walk. So she rose up dripping and pleased, and set to scrubbing three months of rank fear and hard sweat and horse stink off her body.

She was tingling and pink and happy, going over everything a second time, when Jaime came in.

Trust a Lannister to ruin anything. She said a foul word and ducked under again. “There are other baths!”

“I find this one convenient,” he said, and slipped in nearby.

Too near. He was too near, too bare, too smart mouthed — and while those things didn’t bother her when he was sick and fevered he was altogether too alert for her liking, just now.

He caught her looking.

She raised her chin.

“Fancy anything?”

She sniffed. “Nothing I haven’t seen before, and better.”

He smiled at that — he really did have a desperately attractive smile. “Likewise, my lady.”

She remembered his dreaming fevered moan, his voice saying her name, breaking on it, and wondered which one of them was lying.

*

“My father would be interested in having me returned,” he said. “As much of me as you are able to return, of course.”

“Of course.”

“Myself and the lady.”

“That, I am afraid, is impossible.”

Naturally it was; she hadn’t expected otherwise. She would be left alone, and Jaime would save himself.

As he did.

*

She woke to him on top of her in the dirt and dust of the Riverlands, holding his hand over her mouth — his right hand, sword hand, gone now. 

So it _was_ a dream.

That didn’t mean she had to just accept it. But he wasn’t hurting her, not really, no more than he had done in reality; he only moved his hand and brushed back her hair and said  _Lay quiet._ _They’ll hear us._

She tried to push him off her. _Leave me alone._

 _Please,_ and kissed her. _Let me._

_I can’t —_

_You can do anything you want._

_Not this. Not you._

_Why not?_ he said: and she had no answer.

When she opened her eyes it was to the grey curving tunnel of the bear-pit, smoky with torches that gave little light.

*

She pulled him up, his feet scrabbling on the wood for purchase, and dragging him up all she could think was _don’t you dare die on me, you idiot, don’t you dare, don’t you dare —_

Then he shook the hair out of his face and argued their way out of the Keep like he hadn’t just done the stupidest, bravest thing she had ever seen _anyone_ do, and he reached back for her and took her hand without even looking for it.

She could walk faster than almost anyone, but now she stumbled to keep pace.

*

 _Step, strike, parry. Step, strike —_ and Jaime lost his sword.

Bronn’s shoulders dropped; he relaxed, waiting.

 _Step, strike_ and Jaime lost it again. And again.

She watched from the wall while he dropped it and fetched it and dropped it and shook out the tension from his arm and picked up his sword and parried and dropped it again, over and over until he finally reached for it with his useless right hand and caught himself.

His mouth went stiff. _Let’s break awhile,_ it said in silence, voice stolen by the wind.

That night she sent a hot bath to his rooms, knowing he wouldn’t call it in for himself, knowing she wasn’t really being kind to him, it was  self-indulgence and for herself alone — letting herself think of him bare, him bending over, his body lank and lean and tired. Letting out one of those long sighs, softly moaning because of her. Enjoying pleasure because of her.

Even if he didn’t know it.

She could put on the clothes of a serving girl and attend him, maybe. She could pretend that he didn’t recognize her.

Pretend he wanted her.

 _He spoke_ _my_ _name that night, he wanted me,_ she thought: but the memory was flimsy and tired and crumbled even as she called it to mind.

He’d never wanted her, no one would, and she was a fool.

*

One did not simply abandon foolishness, it seemed. Because she could not see him at court without wanting to touch him, no matter how often he looked at his sister and smiled; she could not see him across the field without wanting to stride across and find him, and —

Argue.

They did a lot of arguing.

And she dreamt of him three nights out of five. Sometimes Jaime climbed on her wearing his own dear face and sometimes it was another man’s, the one who had taken his poor hand and tied it around his neck and said: _New jewels for the Lion!_

She woke sobbing, curled up tight, grieving as if it were her own loss. _I am sorry, my lord. I am so so sorry._

But he either knew it already or wouldn’t believe it, and anyway it wasn’t her place to speak to him like that, like they were  _people_ together. No matter how much as he taunted her and tormented her, as often as he was _Jaime_ on her tongue and under her dreaming hands, he was still a Lannister in the waking world, with all the freedom that gave him and all it took away.

After a week of madness she could bear no more; she found Sansa Stark and requested the privilege of joining the battle.

*

She told him herself (she had to see him she had to had to) and for the first time saw him startle in shock.

“You’re what?”

His lips were grey.

She should not be looking at his lips. “I feel it is my duty —“

“What the fuck are you on about? What is _wrong_ with you? Haven’t you had enough of beatings and hunger and exhaustion, and bloody death at the end of it?”

She could beat _him_ for swearing at her. “My lord—”

“Oh, stop that. You’ve cleaned shit off my arse, I think we can disregard formalities. Brienne, are you _insane_? Haven’t you killed enough? Haven’t you risked yourself enough — haven’t _I_ risked—”

He stopped.

This was a mistake, it was always a mistake talking to him, didn’t she know that? “There is more fighting to do.”

“Not _your_ fighting.”

“It’s always my fighting.”

“Fine. That’s — that’s fine. But promise me ...” He stopped. Swallowed. Stared at his hand, golden now. Lannister gold.

She hated to see him remember it. She said: “Anything that is within my power to give you, ser Jaime, I will.”

“Anything?”

“Anything within my honor.”

He had a quicksilver smile at that: his old expression, all smooth self-assurance. “I want nothing of your _honor,_ Brienne of Tarth. Only your word as a knight — pardon,” he corrected himself, “your word as a lady, that — that you will come back, you will come back to me, and see me, and — and tell me all the ways that I am wrong.”

She could taste her heart in her mouth. “That could take some time, Ser Jaime. Hours and hours. Days.”

“Then I have no incentive to shorten the list,” he said: and he smiled again at her, so beautifully this time that she nearly lost her mind again, and stayed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> jaime lannister being the peak & pinnacle of beauty is absolute canon; it’s not my made-up nonsense because i have a Thing For Danes
> 
> i do in fact have a Thing For Danes but that is just a pleasant coincidence


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written 23? june -28 june 2019.

“You swore an _oath_ ,” she said, pink with sun and anger.

She was uglier in the sunlight. But she was dressed again in men’s clothes — as she preferred, apparently, because she had looked both miserable and angry in that horrible pink dress, and now she looked ...

Not attractive. She wouldn’t be attractive, ever. But anger brought out color to her mouth and the light shone in her eyes, and he stared at her. “Are we related? Because every Lannister of my acquaintance is a damn pain in my ass.”

“You _promised_.”

“What difference does that make? A promise to a dead woman.”

“Are the Stark girls dead? Are you?”

He looked away.

“If you abandon your honor, you abandon your soul,” she said.

“Is that what you tell yourself?”

She looked at him like she wanted to push him over the ledge and unto the rocks below: a familiar expression.

Jaime returned the gaze until the urge to touch her was too strong; then he turned his head and looked out out out and over the water. 

*

Sansa had married Lord Tyrion, and Brienne wept for the girl.

 _Don’t be dramatic,_ Jaime had said. _Where else is she safer than with us?_

 _Money is not_ safety _. And anyone wed to a Lannister deserves my pity._

She had heard — not through Jaime — that Tyrion refused to bed her, saying he wouldn’t lay with a girl who was crying, saying he was _incapable_ , saying apparently whatever he needed to say to protect her.

She didn’t credit it.  _No man would do that. He must be truly ... unable._

Jaime had shrugged. _My brother has many faults, but that isn’t one of them. He likes a willing girl._ He’d given her an odd look. _Not every man is a raper._

She’d sniffed. _Enough of you are that it makes no difference._

 _Lady Sansa,_ said Jaime _, might disagree._

*

Then she lost track of him, and his eyes, and his smile.

*

 _Brienne,_ he thought. _Brienne, Brienne._

“What did you say?”

“Nothing.” Lie faster, lie better. “I said — _mine_.”

Cersei lay back; her eyes were suspicious. “Are you sure?”

He smiled at her, open and easy. “No.” Kiss her throat, her breast. “I wasn’t paying much attention to that aspect of things.”

“Idiot,” she said, relaxing.

“Your idiot,” he said: and kissed her again, thinking again  _Brienne_.

*

“Do you miss her?”

Jaime was looking at the rain. “Do I miss who?”

“That lady knight who isn’t a knight.”

“Her? Ghastly long-limbed freak.”

“Indeed.”

“And she isn’t very attractive.”

“No. Not at all your type.”

“No.”

“So,” said Tyrion, “why are you obsessed with her?”

Be steady, be still, don’t react. “Obsessed with Brienne?” He laughed. “You must be joking.”

“I am not joking, and neither are you. You are _lying_. Is it to yourself or to me? How long have you been in love with her?”

“I am not in _love_ with Brienne.”

“Oh,” said his darling baby brother. “Am I to believe all this doopy, irritatingly-prolonged angst is merely because you want to _fuck_ the lady in question, and are unable to make it through the armor?”

Tyrion would not be dissuaded from questioning except by tears, truth, or a tumble: but he tried. “This is dreadful weather. Do you think it will ever stop raining?”

“Does she know?”

Jaime rubbed his forehead. “What good would it do her to know? Since I cannot ... act on it.”

“ _Will_ not, you mean. Your vows only prevent you marrying. They say nothing of _bedding_.” A pause. “As you know.”

“Questions of Cersei aside ... what can I do? I can’t just push Brienne against the wall in some dark alley.” Much as he would enjoy it. “She’s not a farm girl, and I am not the lad who cleans the stables. She’s a lady.”

“Most ladies are farm sluts in better clothes, and they would have those embroidered skirts about their ears if the stable boy winked at them. To say nothing of getting a cock-ride from the prettiest Lannister. Don’t pretend to me that you care about her birth or her virtue, whatever might remain of it; you stay away not because she is a _lady_ but because she is _Brienne_.”

Jaime shrugged. What difference _why_ he couldn’t have what he wanted? “This way or that way, nothing will come of it. And it won’t help matters for her to know that I ... that I ...”

“It might help her to know she isn't alone,” said Tyrion: but Jaime was listening to the rain.

*

She hadn’t ever gone beyond kissing in her imaginings, not entirely sure of exploring the rest even in the safety of her mind — she was no innocent and no fool, she’d seen ... and seen it happen, too; she had even seen  _Jaime Lannister_ in his pleasure. More than once. She’d  _touched_  him, for god’s sake, washing him off, and that part was no different from any other piece of skin. Certainly no more interesting than an elbow or a thumb.

But in her dreams he came to her and said soft things and pushed against her, hard below his waist, and her hands went sloppy and weak with wanting, it was all she could do to push down her trousers and grip him as he ...

She woke sweating and aching and alone.

Alone. She was alone.

No one would know.

 _She_  would know, she told herself. Ser Jaime is a knight, and a lord, and brother to the queen, and his eyes were green and his mouth was clever, he knew exactly what she wanted, he knew  _her_ , his hands knew — his  _hand_. 

He only had one hand. And it wasn’t her fault but it  _was_ , she had watched and done nothing and that made her responsible in a way, didn’t it? Gods forgive her, how could she allow herself to think these things when  _he had only one hand_.

She rolled over and put her face in her linens and moaned in frustrated rage.

*

“Take it.”

He couldn’t be serious. She searched his face — distant; he was distant, he wasn’t bright and sharp and teasing, he couldn’t be serious, and even if he was ... “I cannot accept this.”

“Of course you can.” He came around the table and she backed around it, away from him.

He’d prepared this, he knew she would argue. How did he know that?

He said: “This isn’t a random present, you know. You made a vow — an oath — and you need to keep it.” A smile, and oh didn’t he look like butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. “This is to help you keep it.”

He was lying. She knew it. What was he lying about?

And he kept advancing.

She put a hand on the table to stop herself from backing up any further.  _I am not afraid_. “Ser, it’s too much.”

He stopped just out of arm’s length. “Lady Brienne, you’re wrong. It isn’t enough.”

She couldn’t answer that, how could she answer that? but she shook her head.  _No._

He gave her a strange look — one that set something in her stomach to burn low and hot, and her pulse jump quick.

“Take it,” he said. “Or I’ll make you.”

It sounded like a threat — it was the words of a threat — but the tone of his voice said something else entirely.

Her face reddened. She nodded quick and bowed and took it and left.

*

She fell asleep with a wicked beat in her smallclothes and dreamt of Jaime Lannister, two-handed and mocking her, holding  _Oathkeeper_  out of reach until she came closer, closer, until she climbed unto his lap and gripped it there, a living part of him, and he put his arms around her and said:  _Patience._

 _I don’t want to wait,_ she told him, sobbing from it.  _Take me._

 _I can’t._ _Remember?_ And he held his arm, a bare stump to the wrist. _You do it._

She woke, hot and aching.  _There is nothing honorable that I can give you,_  he’d said: and his eyes were dark and huge.

You do it, he’d told her.

So she did.

*

She would do this. She would. She unbuckled the heavy belt across her hips and took a deep breath and looked up — had Jaime spoken? No.

He’d only made a noise, and gripped the finnial of a chair, looking for all the world like he needed help to stay in place.

“I am returning your sword, ser.” She held it out.

Jaime didn’t move. His cheeks were very dark, flushed with blood. Anger? But he said only: “I cannot accept this.”

“It was a loan, until—”

“It was a _gift_ , and you know it. And I do not have ... there is nothing else I can ... can give. Nothing that you will take.” He licked his mouth. “Nothing _honorable_.”

“There is nothing dis ...” Her throat was dry. “There is no dishonor in a gift, freely given.”

He said: “Then keep it.”

“No.”

“Then what shall I give you?”

She was mute. She shook her head.

“Brienne, I ...”

“You saved me, twice—”

”We are not going to have this argument again,” he said, as though they had it daily, when she _knew_  she’d never spoken it to him before out of the privacy of her mind. “You have saved me, we are equals, we are ... there is no debt.”

”Why do you bring me gifts, then?” she said.

His jaw clenched. ”Because I want to do it.”

”I can’t _accept_ it.”

”I want to give it. And you will accept that, because accepting a gift meant kindly is the _honorable_ thing to do, and you are an _honorable_ woman. You will accept it, Brienne of Tarth, or I will — I will tell you some of the things I want that are _not_ so honorable. You may choose from among those. Or should I give them all to you? Would you prefer that?"

He hadn’t moved an inch closer towards her, he hadn’t changed the tone of his voice at all from one of mild conversation, and still she felt a slow heat crawl up her neck.

He looked at her as though he knew her dreams.

Gods, she hoped not.

“I — I’ll keep it awhile,” said Brienne: and fled.

*

 _I dream of you,_ he said to her, in a dream. _I think of you and I worry for you and I would pray, Brienne, if I had ever learned how._

She was cleaning her sword, polishing it, squinting along the edge for knicks. She had a squire now (“a  _squire!_ ”, scornful) and she let Podrick handle most things -- but this, she did alone.

 _You are too much alone,_  he said.

*

She thought she would burn to the ground in shame next time they met, but it was easier now to look at him, knowing how she wanted him. He spread out his fingers on the table as he leaned forward and spoke, and she stared at those fingers, thinking: How many could she take? and where? and how would it feel, would she cry out loud or would he put his hand in her mouth to bite down on while he slipped inside her, found his place, her sinking down —

“Lady Brienne?”

She jerked up her chin, blushing furious.

So, fine. It was fine. She could just  _live_  with the empty pit feeling in her stomach all the time, and she could live with knowing he never touched her now, hadn’t for months, and even his once-constant smiles were rare.

Some people thought you could send your thoughts to some one else.

She tried.

_Kiss me. Touch me. I want you._

He lifted his gaze to look at her and she flushed and turned away and —

*

“This is _beyond_ ridiculous. Lady Brienne, kneel.”

She knelt for him there in front of everyone, knowing she would do anything he asked, anything at all.

And he knighted her: and she smiled at him.

*

She knelt and she smiled and all Jaime could think was _Tyrion was right, godsdammit, he was_ right _, how does that little shit always know?_

And close on its heels: _Does Cersei know?_

But Brienne was here — no, _Ser_ Brienne he must call her now — and she smiled, she smiled at him, and nothing else mattered very much. 

*

“Where are you going?”

“To my own room.”

“Whose rooms have you been in?”

“That is not your concern.”

“Where have you been? Who have you been -- spending time with?”

“I don’t owe you an explanation for anything, and _you will let go of me.”_

He let go but stepped nearer. “I don’t mean to hurt you, I only ... you’ve been ... upset.”

“I haven’t been. I’m _not_.”

“You’ve been avoiding me.”

“ _I am not.”_

“Then talk to me,” he said: and oh gods, she was going to start crying again, and if he touched her she would hit him or kiss him or both.

And then he stepped closer.

She stepped back. Her elbows hit the wall.

“Brienne ...”

“Leave me be,” she said: and for a wonder, he did.

*

“My lady Brienne — that is, ser.”

“My lord Tyrion,” she said, and bowed.

“Tell me,” he said, and began to walk, so she had to go with him, though he took four quick strides for each of her slow ones, “have you seen much of my brother lately?

“Your brother?”

“Jaime, I mean,” he said, as though he had a surplus of brothers, and the clarification was really necessary. “You remember him. Tall. Annoyingly good-looking. Missing a hand. Thinks he’s far more clever than he is.”

“I remember him, my lord.”

“Yet you aren’t able to answer a simple question?”

“I —“

He stopped, and looked up at her. “You seem confused. Or upset. Which is it?”

She was silent.

He watched her.

Jaime did something similar, she thought. Talk too much, and then shut up; let them wriggle in the quiet like a work on a hook.

She would not wriggle, hook her as he might. She set her jaw.

“Ser Brienne,” said Tyrion, “he said the same thing of you.”

*

Oh she could _thrash_ that Jaime Lannister, she could strike him across his head with the pommel of his own sword _(mine now, mine, he gave it to me he said it was mine he promised me)_

— but what good would that do?

She fought him in the practice yards, a pretend Jaime who had two hands and that old, infuriating smile.

He never smiled at her anymore.

 _He said the same,_  Lord Tyrion had said, and undoubtedly it was very kind of him to tell her so but whatthe hell did it  _mean?_ She hadn’t said _anything_ , she’d only stumbled and stuttered and refused to answer because if she spoke, she would say too much —

 _Ser Brienne,_  Tyrion had said, sounding so like Jaime and so unalike, looking up at her with those clear, mismatched eyes. _He said the same of you._

Meaning --

Meaning he hadn’t said anything at all. He'd refused to speak, because ...

She thought of what it might mean and tripped over her own feet, grip lost; the sword flew out and skittered across the bare dirt.

Oh, hells.

*

 _Ser_ , he said, and pushed her up against a wall.

 _Jaime_ , she said, and reached for him. 

*

“I’d hoped to see you before the battle.”

“I am here to be seen,” not looking up.

“I ... your armor fits well? Is your sword ... sharp?”

“It’s fine.”

He fidgeted. “Are you nervous?”

She eyed him. “No.”

“Maybe I can ... do you need ... something?”

“No.”

“Anything?”

“Alright, that’s _enough_. Why are you being kind to me?”

“Why am I — what?”

“Tell me I’m ugly, tell me to piss off, tell me ...”

“Why would I ... why would I say any of that?”

She stared. “Now I know you’re fucking with me.” And she pushed past him.

“I’m not — I — Brienne!”

*

Then the battle came, and she thought: _If I live through this, I will speak to him, I will open my mouth and courage will come out and I will say —_

What would she say?

 _I will tell her,_ he told himself.  _I will live past this and I will tell Brienne that I need her in my arms and in my bed, and I will not ever have to live through another night without holding her._

Unless, of course, she told him _N_ _o_ , in which case he would go to the nearest cliff and jump off it, he would put a sword through his stomach, he would tell Cersei he loved another and swallow the poison she gave him, because there would be no more use to living in the world, if she did not want him.

*

“Drink.”

“No, I —“

“We’ve battled the dead, and survived. If now isn’t a time to drink, what is?”

Fine.

But he drank more than she did, and she thought — she thought —

 

“You sound quite jealous,” she said.

Did he? It must be true, then. But he didn’t feel jealous; he only felt raw. Exposed. Every nerve hurt, stretched thin and trembling.

 

Had he really thought she was interested in Tormund?

He had.

Gods, men were fools.

Men were fools and so was she because she had thought there would be pain and embarrassment, she’d thought he would laugh at her

she thought all that would be worth it to get rid of this horrible aching need

 

but he didn’t laugh at all, he didn’t even seem to trust himself to look at her, she had lost her fear and he was never so uncertain

 

 _Jaime,_ she said, because he was kissing her and kissing her but would not meet her eye _. Tell me what to do — tell me_ _what you want._

 _Only what you want,_ he said. _Only that._

_Everything. I want you and I want everything. But ..._

_Good,_ he said, and then

_No -- Leave the candle burning. I want to see your face. I want to know it’s you._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Are we related?” he asked, “because I often want to fuck my relatives and you’re no exception” OH JAIME YOU NONSENSE

**Author's Note:**

> “all cats are grey in the dark” is a extremely rude saying, meaning that women are basically interchangeable.
> 
> *
> 
> written, alas, on my phone.


End file.
